The present invention refers to a shower head comprising a hollow housing for the passage of water, a sprinkle device mounted at the outlet end of said housing and a rotatable member cooperating with said sprinkle device for adjusting the through-flow area of the shower head.
In view of increasing energy costs or in case of water shortage, it is desirable that the amount of water used when showering may be reduced without seriously deteriorating the shower effect. It is also desired that the shower pattern, in spite of a reduced amount of water, may be adjusted from consisting of many very thin "needle sharp" jets to a lesser number of turbulent jets with a massaging effect.
One problem in conventional shower heads where there is no possibility to adjust the through-flow area of the water within the shower head itself is that at a low rate of flow of the water the water will just flow out of the shower head without forming a bundle of jets.
Hand held showers with an adjustable shower head are previously known (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 3,116,880) wherein the water flow may be adjusted and even completely closed off by means of a nut screwed onto the outer side of the shower head. This takes place by means of a valve body connected to said nut and moving towards and away from, respectively, the outlet end of the inlet conduit in the shower head and throttling the water flow to a larger or lesser degree. This design, however, does not solve the above mentioned problem since after the throttling the water will flow out into a larger space, being subjected to a reduction in pressure, before being distributed over the jet openings.
It is also known (through the U.S. Pat. No. 3,876,151) to obtain the closing of some of the jet openings by rotating a rotating member provided on the shower head. This will increase the velocity of the water through the remaining open jet openings even at low rates of flow. One drawback of this arrangement, however, is the reduction of the number of jet openings causing a reduced distribution of the water.
In another previously known adjustable shower head (German laid-open patent application No. 30 201) the nozzle plate is fixedly mounted and is surrounded by a rotatable member moveable towards and away from said plate so that an annular opening around the nozzle plate will be closed or opened. Adjustment of the water flow through the nozzle plate can be obtained only by increasing or decreasing the annular slot, which neither leads to a reduction of the water consumption nor to a positive change in the shower pattern.